... I knew I needed to figure my own way to honor my mama, without losing myself in grieving forever.
Once I set my mind to that, what I heard wasn't the sorrow thoughts that had been in my head all year. It was Mama's voice.
Mary El, I'm sorry I died without a chance to say good-bye proper to you. But we all got to die. What matters is what comes first. Don't be so sad I died that you forget to live. That's what a child's for, living long after her mama and papa are gone. And if you don't start living again, how you gonna do Jesus's work?
It didn't come all at once necessarily, but bits and pieces here and there, adding up to that. And when it did, suddenly everything felt easier to bear.
The one thing no one could do the whole year past was console me like Mama would. Now she seemed ready to comfort and love and badger me even from Heaven above. I smiled to think of it, imagining her wheedling and conniving to get the archangels themselves falling into line.
Finding Mama again was like having a veil of sorrow lifted from before my eyes. After that, it was easy enough for me to lift the real veil myself, fold it up and tuck it away with the rest of the mourning attire.
***
"Servus est." Sed fortasse liber animo. "Servus est." Hoc illi nocebit? Ostende quis non sit: alius libidini servit, alius avaritiae, alius ambitioni, omnes spei, omnes timori.
I silently declaimed the passage from the Stoic philosopher Seneca that I translated my first year in Miss Mapps's class, as the rapacious white men gathered outside Omohundro's looked me over just as though I were standing half-stripped on the auction block.
You say, "He is a slave." But he is a person with a free spirit. You say, "He is a slave." But how shall this harm him? Show me who is not a slave. One man is a slave to his lusts, another is a slave to greed, another a slave of ambition, and all are slaves to hope and fear.
No comments:
Post a Comment